We go to Chelsea on Sunday and although Fabregas has said we are going there for the win (which is easier said then done) I’d actually be happy with a point, as it would mean that –
a) Chelsea have yet to beat any of the other "big three" at home as they lost to the scousers and drew with Utd and
b) We would be 2 and 0 in the ‘big four mini league’ with Liverpool still to come to Arsenal before Xmas, which should give us extra confidence going into this critical period of the season.

But like our first season at the Emirates, it’s no good beating the big teams if you can’t beat the smaller ones. At the moment, Chelsea’s and our fortunes are switched round. They can’t play the same way in the Champions League as they do in the Premiership and were vice-versa.

I’m also optimistic of the fact that if Newcastle held them for 90 minutes, then I’m pretty sure we can hold them as our defence is not as shaky as theirs. My reason for thinking this is that Gallas will not want to lose against his former employers so I’d expect he will want to be on top of his game, or so we hope and by him playing well it will go some way towards healing his relationship with the fans.

It’s good that we may have Ade, Sagna and Nasri back in some capacity. I think we should give Vela a start with RVP and leave Ade on the bench. Then we have some kind of impact we could call upon if it went pear-shaped as I don’t think Bendtner can do it the Premiership.

We need something like the Man Utd performance if we are to emerge unscathed from the Bridge and we’d want to keep "Cashley" quiet on all fronts too. It should be a good match, as opposed to the old Mourinho and Grant teams we played against, Scolari’s one attacks as do we.

As I said in my previous article, we must become hard to beat, frustrate whoever we play and concentrate for 95mins. Do that and we will close the gap at least and who knows, come Easter, if we are six points or less behind the leaders, by then we'll have Eddie and maybe Rosicky back. Add to this (hopefully!) some new arrivals in January along with a couple of the kids featuring here and there and there’s a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.

Come On You Gunners, do us proud and make Xmas come early.